He’s raising some fees, but only in programs that don’t already pay for themselves. But you can read his lips: He’s not asking Denver voters for new taxes.

Faced with his own $318 million shortfall, Gov. Bill Ritter, a Democrat, also carved up government.

He eliminated 267 jobs, cut state Medicaid payments to doctors and hospitals, and approved an early release program that will give 2,600 criminals get-out-of-jail-early cards to save about $19 million this year.

And while he also has raised some fees in the past year, he too didn’t ask Colorado voters for a tax hike to make up the shortfall.

Hey, where did all those tax-and- spend liberal Democrats go?

These two are hardly tax adverse. Ritter effectively raised taxes through his 2007 property tax-rate freeze and tried, but failed at the ballot box in 2008, to raise them on energy companies. He also signed a bill to raise vehicle registration fees, which will bring in an extra $250 million a year.

For awhile, it seemed as if Hickenlooper had never met a tax hike he didn’t like. He successfully campaigned to raise taxes for a new jail, Denver teachers, light rail, the science and cultural facilities district and that alphabet soup of referendums A through I.

But even with such a massive shortfall, half a billion between the state and city of Denver, the “T word” was never even whispered publicly by either man.

That’s partly because it can be difficult in Colorado to raise taxes because you have to ask voters. (That’s also why we instead see fee hikes, which don’t need approval.)

But Hickenlooper has proven that Denver isn’t a terribly tax-shy city. If he thought he could raise taxes to help cover his shortfall, he would. But he also was a business owner in previous economic downturns and understands a tax hike could prove devastating to an economy just limping along.

Why hasn’t anyone told President Obama?

Democrats looked to the West in 2008 — and particularly to Colorado, where the party had so much success in 2004 and 2006 — for a blueprint of how they could win elections across the country.

They came in search of the moderate Western Democrat, to learn the secrets of a Bill Ritter, a Ken Salazar. But once they won, they seem to have forgotten the lessons.

Obama has said he won’t raise taxes on the middle class to pay for his health care plan, but few outside of Washington believe it can be paid for by finding efficiencies in the current system.

And he hasn’t been afraid to roll the dice on other tax proposals, saying he wants to reverse tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans, while proposing a tax of sorts on employers, saying business owners that don’t provide health coverage to employees will have to pay into a pool to subsidize everyone’s insurance needs.

The president also supports the congressional Democrats’ cap-and-trade proposal, which could cost taxpayers up to $200 billion a year — the equivalent of hiking personal income taxes by about 15 percent, according to a recent CBS News report.

At some point, we need to pay government’s bills and reform our health care system. And that will take money. And all of the spending of the past year (and previous eight) will come due, either through higher taxes or massive inflation. We’ll need to ante up.

But now is not the time to pick the pockets of those Americans who still have jobs.

It’s like I tell Goodwill when they call and I have nothing to give: Check back with us later.

There is no rhyme or reason, and nothing that could pass for a justifiable goal or an ounce of sense, in the infliction of misery on the 800,000 federal employees either on furlough or working without pay.